"Pantomime Jack"

Infinity Cat Recordings

Artists:

Ed Schrader's Music Beat is a two-piece: One weirdo with a floor tom and a basso profundo voice tht turns into a Frank Black shriek—that'd be Ed Schrader—and another weirdo, named Devin Rice, who plays bass guitar. Together, they record vivid little tantrums that produce a whole lot of tension and foreboding from very elemental sounds. Schrader has a theatrical flair that gives songs like "I Can't Stop Eating Sugar" an air of Lynchian menace. The bass line to "Pantomime Jack" is obviously being played by one finger gingerly up and down one string, before settling on a power chord to bludgeon. The song explodes into epileptic fits every twenty seconds or so, and it's a visceral surprise every time.